Thursday, July 11, 2013

Joined Randy yesterday. The goal was to begin the journey of getting 36 from a control trailer to its proper status as a motor car. The plan was to move the 36 over the pit using the 309 for power. However a quick trip to barn 4 to check the status of the pit relieved a surprise. Track 41 was occupied by a birthday present

Still in its birthday wrapper is Cleveland 1218. for more on the story of the 1218 visit here and here. As this car is said to be in operating condition its too bad it didn't arrive a week earlier to be included in the parade.

So lacking access to the pit we decided to attack some other outstanding issues. The trolley bases needed to be cleaned up and mounted on the car. Lacking a motorized vehicle that wouldn't be damaged carrying the heavy and awkward bases we requisitioned the trusty dept. Radio Flyer (remember what that is? ). We hiked out to the container and loaded up the two bases. Somehow I missed getting a photo of us tugging these back to barn 4.

Randy proceeded to take off some of the easily removable parts. I took them and some parts from the grid box for the 36 to clean up with the wire wheel and the grit blaster. Randy also wire brushed the base and started applying a coat of primer to be followed with some gloss black.

Barn 4 was also abuzz with the news that the first of the CTA 2200s would be arriving late in the day. I had to leave before the Silk Road truck delivered the new, to IRM, car. But Ray Piesciuk did capture this image.

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I rode this car and its mate (the one that went to NORyM) in 1991 and 1993...when the Brookins collection went up for sale I was rooting for us to get one of these Shaker Rapid cars and was disappointed when we did not. Glad to see this happen.

Saw this on the Cleveland RTA web site from their 7-16-13 board meeting. 2013-68 – Authorizing the donation of obsolete railcars to the Northern Ohio Railway Museum and authorizing the General Manager to execute all documents necessary for such transfer.

Interesting find! GCRTA has three electric cars I'd consider "obsolete." There are the two historic cars, center door car 12 and "Bluebird" rapid transit car 109, and line car 024, which was rebuilt from a center door car. I wonder if the donation might be for one, two or all three of those.

Contributors

About This Site

The "Hicks Locomotive and Car Works" banner at the top is taken from original artwork of the company, which was in business from 1897 to 1911. The picture behind it shows the four restored CA&E wood cars at the Museum, starting with #309, which was built by the Hicks Locomotive and Car Works in 1907.

This is not an official website for the Illinois Railway Museum. It represents only the personal views of the authors.

It has been developed and tested using Chrome, Firefox, and IE7 with the screen set at 768x1024. If any other browser gives you a problem, please let me know.

Any reproduction or other use of the material posted here for personal or commercial profit or financial gain would be a miracle. So don't try it.